Whiteboard Friday refresh
Overview
My task was to redesign the look and branding of Moz's popular Whiteboard Friday series. This blog and youtube series featured experts in the SEO industry talking about subjects of interest, all in front of a whiteboard on which they'd diagramed their subject. The format still worked and was a great release to drive traffic and promote Moz's thought leadership, but the presentation of the thumbnails and promotions on social media and the blog hadn't changed since it's inception in 2007. While that worked when it was the sole domain of the company's founder, the series had since evolved significantly, and the design need to evolve with it.
Challenge
How to make it feel familiar, yet modernized? I wanted to broaden the color palette and give the thumbnails and social images some scroll-stopping appeal, but also didn't want to loose the personality inherent in the series. One of the best features was the presenter striking a fun and playful pose, often utilizing some kind of prop. I thought it was crucial to keep incorporating the presenter doing something fun, so the solution was to keep them, doing a very simple cutout, sometimes utilizing photoshop to add an unexpected prop or illustrate something into the scene, and put them against a modified and modernized version of Moz's classic background. I also incorporated the sometimes difficult design language of custom typography around each of the titles. The tradeoff in extra design time was worth the visual appeal of the titles, as I especially wanted to avoid title blindness creeping in.
The final outcome of the refresh process was a set of 4 backgrounds to cycle between, and a template that gave us a great starting place but was also adaptable. I created templates, and eventually the production process has ramped up to include:
- Blog header
- YouTube thumbnail
- Social post card
- Instagram image
- Instagram story cover
- Branded and unbranded teasers for each video
- All produced on a weekly cadence
Blog Headers
Youtube Thumbnails
Instagram images
Instagram Story Covers
Teasers
A program was also set up to record teasers (brilliant idea and execution by content manager Jo Cameron), utilize them for paid ads and social posts, and adapt the new branding to these short videos along with some basic-but-snappy animation and editing (production by the talented Elda Flores Montelongo)
Results
I am very happy with the productivity, brand enhancement, and results of this combined effort and program.
- Launching a new, fully branded, Whiteboard Friday video and blog post every week
- Improved impressions, engagement, and sharing on social medias
- 18% increase in traffic to WBF posts on the blog since the redesign
- The YouTube channel and Insta grids are a big improvement
